Simulating the Cards Plan B’s

With the Matt Holliday clock now ticking there has been a lot of talk about the plan B options, so I thought it would be a good time to bring out my WAR simulation (which I’ve expanded to include defense).

I looked at the following options that I’ve heard/read about at some time over the past couple of days [Quick update: as Dan at VEB points out this list is not exhaustive, and I'll try to run at least some of the suggestions people make here or over there]

• Holliday (hey I was curious) in left and David Freese at 3rd (MH)
• Erik’s nightmare – AKA Miguel Tejeda at third and Allen Craig in Left (MT)
• Mark Derosa at 3rd and Craig in Left (MD)
• Freese at 3rd and an  Craig/Kelly Johnson platoon in LF (KJ/AC)

Here’s the CDF graph

The x axis is position player WAR and the y axis is probability.  For those that are not statistically inclined, the probability is the probability that the respective WAR would not be exceeded.  For example, the probability that the Holliday team won’t exceed the 2009 Phils is ~0.8.  More simply stated, there’s a 20% chance that (based on CHONE offensive and my defensive projections) a Cards team with Holliday would outperform the position player production of the 2009 Phils.

The MT line is under the MD line.

Clearly this exercise doesn’t factor in that money saved could be put towards pitching (I hope to add pitching to the sim this week).  That being said it’s fairly obvious (even without the sim) that Holliday>>these plan b options.  Also of note is that going young and rolling the dice on Johnson is likely better than the proven vet options.  We’ll see what pitching adds to the equation later this week.

Data: Offensive projections from CHONE, defensive projections mine (right sidebar) or CHONE for those with no MLB experience, 2009 data from fangraphs

Thoughts on the Winter Meetings, Non-Tenders

Bullet points roasting over an open fire. Scott Boras nipping at your toes…

• Scott Boras sounds like he’s been reading the P-D forums a bit too long. He’s trying to kick a hornet’s nest of angry fans who think Bill DeWitt is Scrooge McDuck, swimming in piles of gold but someone not interested in really spending it. That segment of fans isn’t as big as he believes. Most fans know the Cardinals have done just fine under DeWitt’s ownership.
• That said, the Cardinals do have gaps to fill. Holliday is a 5-6 WAR player, at least for maybe another year or two, but he contributed 3 wins with St. Louis.  A 5-win hole probably remains, but what made the Cardinals a playoff team was not only Holliday.  Carpenter and Wainwright have phenomenal seasons. There was also some unexpectedly good performances from Pineiro and Ryan. At the same time, they got just about jack from 2B/3B. It’s normal to expect some leveling out to happen. Carp and Wainwright will likely regress. Ryan won’t hit as well.  Schumaker should improve a bit. And hopefully things will improve at third, right? As it stands, this team looks like an 85 win team. Ish.
• Brad Penny fills the Pineiro-void nicely. At least according to CHONE, Penny projects to be 21 runs above replacement. Pineiro projects to be 24. Not a big diff, and at no long-term commitment.  ZiPS is a lot less optimistic. At $7.5M, the Cardinals are paying about $3.5M per win here. If he hits his inning incentive, well, he’ll still be a relative bargain. Dave Duncan and Brad Penny seem like a marriage made in baseball heaven.
• Phil Rogers says the Cardinals strongly considered Rich Harden before signing Penny. They went with Penny because of concerns over his medical records. I would’ve preferred Harden, but if they didn’t like his med records, then they did the right thing.
• Getting back to Holliday, offering less than $18M per isn’t going to cut it, but it’s a fair offer. That’s an implied $4.5M per win, as Holliday projects as a 4 win player this year by CHONE. He’s sure to regress over the years, while the cost of a win is sure to go up. But isn’t a win to the Cardinals worth a little more than the going rate? Going back to my guesstimate of 85ish wins, 4 wins from Holliday is a big difference. If the Cardinals were already in the 90-win range, then Holliday is just expensive cake. If we were the Astros or Pirates than Holliday would just be around to make fans feel better and put a few more butts in seats, but it wouldn’t be worth the money in the long run. But the Cubs can’t possibly suck as bad as they did last year, so Holliday should probably be worth a little bit more to the Cardinals, who need to maintain their distance from Chicago.
• So how do the Cardinals fill that void? I’ve heard Felipe Lopez and Mark DeRosa as possible parts of a Plan B. While saying FeLo and DeRo all season long, as they sound like Hobbit names, it’s not going to make for an exciting lineup. We would be looking again at an Albert and the 7 Hobbits rerun. That would be OK if they do pick up another pitcher, I guess, assuming that pitcher is good. DeRo and FeLo both project as 2 win players. The idea of DeRosa in LF isn’t exciting, but for what it’s worth, his UZR/150 on the OF corners is +16. Yeah, seriously. That’s not small samples, that’s over 1600 innings. I’m not saying he’d be that good, but it’s something to think about.
• Here’s some low-hanging fruit alternatives: Ryan Church and Kelly Johnson have been non-tendered by the Braves. Johnson might be a cheap alternative to DeRosa. Let’s run them both through the WAR gambit. CHONE and Bill James project Johnson to rebound from his awful 2009 season that was dragged down by a .249 BABIP Both call for about a .345 wOBA. Over 600 plate appearances, that would make Johnson worth about 8 runs above average. His left field defense, like DeRosa, has been superb, while his infield defense has been shaky. We’ll just project him for LF now, so -7.5 runs. Then add in 20 runs above replacement and we’ll just estimate he’ll be worth +5 in left. We get 2.6 WAR, pretty darn sweet. And he’s only 28. And he’s a left-handed hitter, something the Cardinals covet.  My gut is he’d handle 3B about as well as he’s handled 2B; I’m presuming -5. You still get a 2.6 WAR player. If I were Mo, I’d get on the horn with Johnson’s agent, stat.
• Church doesn’t project as well, but he is also a rebound candidate who has hit some tough luck with injuries. Both James and CHONE have him pegged for a .335 wOBA.  Steve’s fielding projection has Church at  +5.  Getting right to it, over 600 PA, Church should be good for 2 WAR. It’s hard to foresee Church staying on the field enough to rack up 600 plate appearances, but his injuries (concussions, back) have been more of the freak variety. He was 9 and 10 runs above average offensively with Washington not many seasons ago. The Cardinals could get Johnson or Church and then maybe, just maybe take what they were going to offer to Holliday and offer it to John Lackey. Is that too nuts?
• As for the other non-tenders of note, Gomes can’t field a lick. He’s Chris Duncan bad, if not, possibly worse. My suspicion is Garret Atkins is a product of Coors. I took his projections and translated them to Busch and got a sub-.400 slugging. He is also not much of a fielder. I think I’d rather have Freese get a shot.
• Whew. We’re all caught up. That was JoePoz wordy, something new for me.

CHONE Defensive Projections

Rally rocks. He recently incorporated defensive projections at BaseballProjection.com.

Here’s the Cardinals, sorted from best to worst, including some prospects of varying hotness.

Name
POS
 Runs


Ryan,   Brendan
SS
15


DeJesus, Antonio
OF
11


Jay, Jonathan
OF
10


Molina, Yadier
C
9


Robinson, Shane
OF
9


Pujols, Albert
1B
8


Rasmus, Colby
CF
6


Jones, Daryl
OF
4


Henley, Tyler
OF
2


Rapoport, James
CF
1


Luna, Aaron
OF
1


Freese, David
3B
0


Brito, Javier
DH
0


Craig, Allen
OF
0


Thurston, Joe
3B
-1


Ludwick, Ryan
OF
-1


Mather, Joe
OF
-1


Gotay, Ruben
3B
-2


Shorey, Mark
OF
-2


Hamilton, Mark
1B
-3


Buckman, Brandon
1B
-3


Arburr, Matthew
1B
-3


Stavinoha, Nick
OF
-3


Solano, Donovan
3B
-4


Kozma, Peter
SS
-4


Brown, Andrew
1B
-5


Descalso, Daniel
2B
-5


Greene, Tyler
SS
-5


Schumaker, Skip
2B
-6


Lugo, Julio
2B
-6


Folli, Mike
3B
-6


Pagnozzi, Matt
C
-6


Cruz, Tony
C
-7


Derba, Nick
C
-7


Sedbrook, Colt
2B
-10


Rowlett, Casey
2B
-10


Hoffpauir, Jarrett
2B
-11


Anderson, Bryan
C
-12


Hill, Steven
C
-14

It’s optimism, but I’m all for optimism. Rally’s projections have Boog as the NL’s best defensive shortstop, trailed by Tulowitzki and Yunel Escobar.

I don’t know how Sean translates the numbers for catcher exactly, but this looks like another blow to what’s left of Bryan Anderson’s prospect status. And yet Pagnozzi isn’t as stellar as advertised, either. Maybe he’s just popular with pitchers, I don’t know.

Jon Jay, Chief Justice of the Outfield. He’s currently hitting .323/.418/.431 in the Venezuelan Winter League, whatever that might mean. A plus 10 in the corners means he could would be average in center field, which is good. I expect him to be a nice little 4th outfielder next season. Robinson and DeJesus both have the glove to play center, but their bat keeps them from being much more than replacement level.

Comparing Defensive Projections

There’s a couple of different defensive projections that are currently available for all to see.  You’ve got mine linked over on the right sidebar, and Jeff Z’s available through this link.  The beauty of the two sets of projections are that the respective methodologies are discussed in the articles presenting them, and the projections are fairly simple to compare (i.e. only one number really).  A second positive is that the methodologies only differ by one element, the FSR, as Jeff includes 4 yrs UZR (when available) and I include 3 yrs + the fans.  Since that’s the only difference, it makes drawing some insights/conclusions from analyzing the differences a little simpler, and that’s exactly what I’m going to step through here.  Jeff is doing the same over at BtB, so go check out his piece as well.

First, I’d like to get a feel for just how different the two projections were.  For that a simple distribution should do the trick.  The absolute difference is across the x axis and the count is on the y.

Clearly the majority of the differences are less that 4 runs and over half has a difference of 0 or 1.  Given that there are differences though, what positions are the differences coming from.  In this chart absolute difference is again across the x, but now percent (by position) is on the y.

At first glance it seems like the outfield becomes more prevalent the farther right you go…

So now that we have a decent idea of the magnitude of the differences, it’s time to dig into where the actual differences are.  Who is affected by adding in the FSR as a factor?  I’ll answer that question by examining two parameters: 1)Experience of the player and 2)Position / FSR rank combination.  This first table highlights the experience piece

Game Bin	AVG ABS Diff	STD DEV	Count
<50	1.85	1.14	41
50-100	1.88	1.45	64
100-150	1.90	1.45	53
150-200	1.54	1.30	30
200-300	1.38	1.11	81
300-400	1.26	0.85	46

As one would expect the less experience the player has the bigger the difference between the two projections.  The FSR number are a larger percentage of the puzzle for less experienced players as I weighted it at 125 games no matter what the experience level of the player was.  [Update: I used my effective defensive games to bin the games, not actual games as Jeff did in his analysis]

Finally, which position / FSR rank combos gained the most by inclusion of the FSR

and lost the most

All told  it appears that the FSR does make a difference, but it’s usually only on the order of a couple of runs, which is well within the margin of error for UZR.  It has the potential to clear up the picture for players with limited major league experience, as it makes the “available data set” larger, so there is less regression to the mean.

The F.A.T. of the Land: Cards sign Ruben Gotay

As far as NRI’s go, this one is worth a mini-fist pump, even if it’s at the price of looking like a nerd. Gotay is some decent F.A.T. Freely Available Talent, that is.

Gotay played 3B for the Diamondbacks’ Triple-A affiliate and hit .272/.429/.450. He had more walks (102!) than strikeouts (69) and hits (101). Gotay also showed some decent power — 42% of his hits went for extra bags. His MLE line was a nifty .258/.391/.402. He’s primarily played 2B in the majors; and is a -8 UZR per 150 games. For what it’s worth, he was a +1 as a 3B for Reno according to his Total Zone stats on MLSplits.

I adjusted his CHONE projection to St. Louis, it shakes out to a .363 OBA/.381 SLG. Not shabby at all.

I’m not saying he’s the savior at 3B, but he’s free extra depth and is David Freese’s age, the David Freese who is currently on the top of the 3B depth chart. At worst he makes Memphis a little more interesting.

Around the Diamond

Hope everyone enjoyed their bird and stuffing. Let’s take a look around the interwebs, catch up on a little news.

• David Appelman is a genius, and I’m not just kissing up because he lets me occasionally embarrass myself at FanGraphs. He’s now introduced Fan Projections. You can go in, pick your favorite team and enter your projections. This leads to more registered users for FanGraphs and better yet, fewer flaky voters. Smart. CHONE or ZiPS might not know Brendan Ryan might not know helpful information such as Brendan Ryan is going to start 85-90% of the games at SS next year. I take pride that my suspicion that Kyle Lohse’s arm is about to fall off is going to go into his projection.
• The handlebar mustachioed one is back, per the team’s official Twitter feed. Yawn. In his two seasons with the Cardinals, LaRue performance has been worth $3.5M according to FanGraph’s Win Values, and this assumes he’s been neutral on defense, which he probably has been. Maybe a smidge better than average. He’s earned around $2M. SMALL WIN!!!!111ONE!
• Some might see this as an indictment against Bryan Anderson. No, the verdict against Anderson came when Matt Pagnozzi moved ahead of him on the depth chart. But, Anderson is just 23 years old. The vultures are circling around Anderson’s prospect status; I’m not ready to bury him yet.
• I’m going to start wringing my hands about Albert’s contract extension yet. I am going to start to wring my hands a little if I keep hearing Miguel Tejada rumors. Keeping the commentary to a minimum: Batting average, Miguel Tejada: Overrated. Defense, Adrian Beltre: Underrated.
• One voter has done a 180 on his stance on Mark McGwire and the HoF. I really like Davidoff, but in pleading Mac’s case, I came away feeling a little worse about the BBWAA ever putting McQuiet in the Hall. Talk to us, Mark!

Defensive Projections Fixed

Hey all, Jeff Z found a few errors in my spreadsheet so I’ve fixed them and there is a new link on the sidebar (11-25 projections).  Sorry for the errors, it affected some outfielders (at least those were most notable).

Pujols Graphically Through the Years

Just wanted to put a couple of charts up that give a pretty decent view of Albert’s offense through the years.  First, his wOBA by components graph (note these were computed with each year’s coefficients)

That’s pretty consistent, with only one year that tickles .400 or below.  And for another look, the same chart from a percentage view

This gives a better view into the relative way he’s amassed his offensive production.  Wow he got a lot of his value from the HR in 2006…  anyway, just thought these graphs were interesting given the occasion of his 3rd MVP.

 

My plan is to get my simulation back out now that I have my defensive projections to input in there, so look for some comparisons of different potential roster constructions.  If you have any you’d specifically like to see drop them in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Defensive Projections Take 2

A few weeks ago I posted a set of defensive projections for SS based on regressing a 3 year average UZR to a population based on the Fan’s Scouting Report created by tangotiger.  After some discussion over  at The Book Blog, I altered my methodology a little and have come up with a set of projections for all positions.

First a quick discussion about the methodology.  The projected values are a weighted average of the

1. Players 3 year weighted UZR (5/4/3 style)
2. The UZR mean of the “scouting population” to which the player belongs (more on this in a minute)
3. The league average (i.e. 0).

The weights are

1. Effective defensive games over the three year sample (also weighted, so not just the sum)
2. 125 games
3. 125 games

which basically means the larger the 3 year sample, the less impact the “regressions” have, which falls under the basic premise of the more data you have the less you need to regress.

The scouting population is determined by where the player ranks in Tango’s Fans Scouting Report (FSR).  I took the last three years of FSR data and found the average UZR/150s for various bins of players (currently done by ordinal ranking, but will likely transition to binning by overall score once 2009 numbers are computed by Tango ).  I then crossed that data with were the specific player ranked in the 2009 voting, with that number becoming the scouting regressing factor.

For those that read my previous post on it, Method 2 was the methodology adopted (as MGL pointed out that it was the correct method).  Anyway on to the results.  First the leaders (with a minimum of 60 effective DGs)

Name	Pos	UZR/150
Travis Ishikawa	1B	5.6
Chase Utley	2B	10.8
Omar Vizquel	SS	9.3
Evan Longoria	3B	11.9
Carl Crawford	LF	10.9
Franklin Gutierrez	CF	12.2
Jayson Werth	RF	11.2

You’ll note that the projections are for UZR/150 so you’d need to utilize an expected playing time to convert these to runs.  For example, I find it highly unlikely that Omar Vizquel will get enough playing time to save ~9 runs, but clearly if he played 75 DGs then he’d save ~4-5 runs.

Now for the laggards

Name	Pos	UZR/150
Jason Giambi	1B	-5.6
Alberto Callaspo	2B	-5.7
Yuniesky Betancourt	SS	-10.1
Edwin Encarnacion	3B	-8.9
Adam Dunn	LF	-14.9
Vernon Wells	CF	-10.1
Brad Hawpe	RF	-19.1

For those that want to make the argument that Dunn won’t be playing left field again, second to last went to Delmon Young. For those making the same argument about Giambi, second to last there was Billy Butler. I’m posting the results spreadsheet on google docs with the link over on the sidebar, so feel free to download it and use it for whatever you want. The sheet contains the position the projection is for, the projection itself, 3 year UZR/150, and the effective DGs.

Finally, since this is a Cardinals blog, I wouldn’t leave you without giving you the key returning Cardinal players

Name	Pos	UZR/150
Brendan Ryan	SS	7.2
Colby Rasmus	CF	5.5
Albert Pujols	1B	5.0
Ryan Ludwick	RF	1.0
Skip Schumaker	2B	-5.1
Julio Lugo	SS	-5.9

A couple of final caveats about the projections. I know there are players missing, and there are definitely player/position combos missing. As a first pass I only projected the position that they had been identified with in the FSR. I plan to remedy that, but it’ll have to wait until the next iteration. Also, I didn’t apply an aging factor, which is clearly not a good way to go about projecting. In his BtB piece Jeff mentioned a -0.7 UZR, but I want to give some thought about how to apply that to UZR/150. Hopefully the next iteration will have some aging factor applied, up until then, apply whatever you see fit. Anyway, download away, and let me know if you have questions/problems.

CBA Awards

A couple of weeks before I shut down my old site to move over here, I joined the United Cardinal Bloggers alliance.  One of their year end activities is the Cardinal Blogger Awards.  Instead of publishing my ballot over at my old site, I figure I’d publish it here as it also serves as a good year end wrap up post…  Of course these are only my views and Erik probably has his own opinion on these issues.

My votes after the jump